Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 gangbanger, may have earned over $100,000 a year trafficking people, including children, and was paid up to $1,500 per smuggling trip, according to witnesses.
Co-conspirators and witnesses working with the federal government’s human smuggling case against the Salvadoran national who was wrongfully deported in March have provided fresh information on Abrego Garcia’s purported “full-time job.”
During a detention hearing in Nashville on Friday, when Abrego Garcia pled not guilty, a federal agent presented the accusations.
Homeland Security Investigations special agent Peter Joseph stated that as part of the unlawful operation, smugglers charged migrants from Central and South America $8,000 for transit into the United States, and Abrego Garcia would pick them up in Texas and carry them across the country.
According to one co-conspirator, Abrego Garcia performed one or two smuggling excursions a week and received payments of up to $1,500 every trip, Joseph disclosed.
The Maryland guy may have earned over $100,000 annually from the travels.
A second co-conspirator who assisted federal agents confirmed the payment system, pointing out that the trafficker transmitted $1,000 payments to the driver who made the long-distance journeys.
Additionally, according to the co-conspirator, about 30% of the smuggling operation’s clients were gang members.
The allegations against Abrego Garcia for human smuggling are related to a traffic encounter in Tennessee in 2022, where Garcia was stopped while operating a vehicle carrying nine people.
According to body camera footage of the interaction, a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer discovered an envelope with $1,400 in cash on the illegal immigrant during the speeding stop. This shows that the officers suspected the Maryland man of smuggling the individuals in the vehicle.
According to Joseph’s testimony, six of the nine people in the car that Abrego Garcia was stopped in were in the United States illegally, and the owner was Jose Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted migrant smuggler.
Additionally, witnesses claimed that children were made to sit on the floorboards while being transported.
Authorities were informed by one of Abrego Garcia’s co-conspirators that they also saw drug and firearm smuggling, and that the weapons, which included semi-automatic rifles and handguns, were concealed under the youngsters traveling with them.
Following an objection from his defense team, testimony on claims that Abrego Garcia had intercourse with some of his passengers, including a juvenile, was restricted.
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There are no sex, drug, or firearm charges against Abrego Garcia. The evidence that Abrego Garcia poses a risk to the community and ought to stay incarcerated was shown at the hearing.
The Justice Department’s accusations have been described as “preposterous” by his attorneys.
Joseph was also questioned by the defense team about any agreements he had made with the government witnesses, implying that their evidence created a conflict of interest.
One witness, who is currently serving a 30-month prison sentence after being deported, is staying in a halfway house and may be granted work permit, according to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys.
Defense attorneys claim that a second witness is a close relative of the first witness and that he promised to cooperate in exchange for being released from custody.
A third had already received payment for assisting law enforcement.
